#people who are mentally ill

[spaceacerat]

I see you disabled people who don't know your family medical history because your family members couldn't/wouldn't/weren't allowed to go to the doctor and never got diagnosed, or don't know your family.

I see you disabled people who didn't know you were disabled growing up, physically or mentally, maybe because your parents didn't have insurance and couldn't afford it/wouldn't take you seriously/didn't think it was a problem because they had it/doctors couldn't figure it out.

I see you disabled people who have bouts of an issue that you grew up with, that are/were infrequent enough that you never really thought about it and dealt with it on your own, and when you have one in front of people who weren't medically neglected, you wonder why they look so horrified as you describe it.

I see you disabled people who didn't/haven't had any amount of care or accommodation for their disability since it started, because you couldn't get diagnosed.

I see you disabled people who grew up thinking everyone had the same problem as you and that it was normal and so you accepted it, because you didn't understand how the human body worked and had no real frame of reference nor the language to ask for help, or the people around you saw it and just ignored it.

I see you disabled people only now understanding that what you experience is abnormal, and that there are things that can be done to help it, make it easier, or at least help you understand yourself better.

I see you disabled people that will never be able to get diagnosed or get the help you need, whether from being poor, lacking insurance, or any number of reasons.

This shit is hard, and there are people who will never quite understand your struggles. It doesn't seem to get talked about as much, but I wish it was. Please know I love you, and you aren't alone.

[inkskinned]

today i love the red metal crane in her long neck arching her body over the boston skyline, which means i am okay for a moment. when i am unwell, everything is a little ugly. i always tell myself look for the beauty but when it is bad, i will look at birds and sunsets and little ducklings and feel absolutely nothing.

when my brother got his puppy, i was in a deep depression. what kind of monster isn't affected by a puppy. i was gentle and kind to her - i just didn't have an emotional reaction. she's five now and i feel like i spend all of our interactions apologizing to her - i don't know why. i just didn't feel anything. how embarrassing. i feel like if i admit that, i'll seem cruel and jaded. it comes in waves. like, two months ago when i went out into the world - it was like that. life behind a pane of stormglass. a firework could go off over your head - nothing. like dead skin, no reaction. not to ice cream or rainbows or baby chickens. life foggy and uninteresting.

i love goslings again. i love their little webbed feet splayed over grass. i love good food and live music and long walks. i like puppies. i feel like some kind of my soul has been starved - i keep staring at everything with wide eyes, trying to burrow the sensation into my stomach. it's real. beauty is real. when it's bad again, remember this. i stop and smell the flowers, feeling cliche in the moment. i like the white-to-red ombre of my neighbor's roses. i like colorcoding and yoga and cold drinks. i try to pass my hands over every moment, feeling like i'm squeezing joy out of every instant. remember this. for the love of god, it's real - just remember this.

[kindnessoverperfection]

Please, if you can, take a moment to read and share this because I feel like I'm screaming underwater.

NPD (Narcissistic Personality Disorder) stigma is rampant right now, and seems to be getting progressively worse. Everyone is using it as a buzzword in the worst ways possible, spreading misinformation and hatred against a real disorder.

I could go on a long time about how this happened, why it's factually incorrect (and what the disorder actually IS), why it's harmful, and the changes I'd like to see. But to keep this concise, I'll simply link to a few posts under the cut for further reading.

The point of this post is a plea. Please help stop the spread of stigma. Even in mental health communities, even around others with personality disorders, in neurodivergent "safe" spaces, other communities I thought people would be supportive in (e.g. trans support groups, progressive spaces in general), it keeps coming up. So I'm willing to bet that a lot of people on this site need to see this.

Because it's so hard to exist in this world.

My disorder already makes me feel as if I'm worthless and unlovable, like there's something inherently wrong and damaged about me. And it's so much harder to fight that and heal when my daily life consists of:

Laughing and spending time with my friends, doing my utmost best to connect and stay present and focused on them, trying to let my guards down and be real and believe I'm lovable- when suddenly they throw out the word "narcissist" to describe horrible people or someone they hate, or the conversation turns to how evil "people with narcissistic personality disorder" are. (Seriously, you don't know which of your friends might have NPD and feels like shit when you say those things & now knows that you'd hate them if you knew.)

Trying to look up "mental health positivity for people with npd", "mental health positivity cluster bs", only to find a) none of that, and b) more of the same old vile shit that makes me feel terrible about myself.

Having a hard time (which is constant at this point) and trying to look up resources for myself, only to again, find the same stigma. And no resources.

Not having any clue how to help myself, because even the mental health field is spitting so much vitriol at people with DISORDERS (who they're supposed to be helping!) that there's no solid research or therapy programs for people like me.

Losing close friends when they find out, despite us having had a good relationship before, and them KNOWING me and knowing that I'm not like the trending image of pwNPD. Because now they only see me through the lens of stigma and misinformation.

Hearing the same stigma come up literally wherever I go. Clubs. Meetings. Any online space. At the bus stop. At the mall. At a restaurant. At work. Buzzword of the year that everyone loooves loudly throwing around with their friends or over the phone. Feels awesome for me, makes my day so much better/s

I could go on for a long time, but I'm scared no one will read/rb this if it gets too much longer.

So please. Stop using the word "narcissist" as a synonym for "abusive".

Stop bringing up people you hate who you believe to have NPD because of a stigmatizing article full of misinformation whenever someone with actual NPD opens their mouth. (Imagine if people did that with any other disorder! "Hey, I'm autistic." "Oh... my old roommate screamed at me whenever I made noise around him, and didn't understand my needs, which seems like sensory overload and difficulty with social cues. He was definitely autistic. But as long as you're self-aware and always restraining your innate desire to be an abusive asshole, you're okay I guess, maybe." ...See how offensive and ignorant that is?)

Stop preventing healthcare for people with a disorder just because it's trendy to use us as a scapegoat.

If you got this far, thank you for reading, and please share this if you can. Further reading is under the cut.

NPD Criteria, re-written by someone who actually has NPD

Stigma in the DSM

Common perception of the DSM criteria vs how someone may actually experience them (Keep in mind that this is the way I personally experience these symptoms, and that presentation can vary a lot between individuals)

"Idk, the stigma is right though, because I've known a lot of people with NPD who are jerks, so I'm going to continue to support the blockage of treatment for this condition."

(All of these were written by me, because I didn't want to link to other folks' posts without permission, but if you want to add your own links in reblogs or replies please feel free <3)

[autumnalmess]

Hey man sorry I've not posted in a while, it's a funny story actually. I actually got arrested for stealing bread for my sister and her seven starving children. yeah, it was pretty bad. I tried to escape 3 times so yeah I got 19 years, yeah and then I broke my parole and now there's this slutty little man after me, yeah I think he has a crush on me or smt idk

[schizopositivity]

Hallucinating is normal, many people experience it. You have most likely at least passed someone in the street who was hallucinating once. Or you've worked alongside a coworker who was actively hallucinating and you didn't even notice. Or your loved one hallucinated while you were in the room, but they were afraid to tell you.

Hallucinating is common, it's just not commonly talked about in everyday situations. If you don't experience it, or don't know someone who does and tells you about it, you've probably only heard it in the news or on TV. And they only really represent the worst possible outcome for shock value. But that isn't representative of how most of us who hallucinate experience it.

Most of us are just like everybody else, living our lives, just with the addition of hallucinations. We may need to take pills every day, or need therapy, or need to stay in mental hospitals sometimes, or need to be checked on by loved ones, but so do a lot of other people who don't hallucinate.

Hallucinations are just a symptom. Just like anxiety, or trouble concentrating, or tiredness. A lot of people experience it and have to learn to cope overtime. The only difference is we don't generally talk about it to people in casual settings. And it's because of the stigma. If you don't hallucinate, or know someone who does, you probably don't see hallucinations as a normal part of life, a symptom, just a thing plenty of people experience. But it is, it's not special, it isn't more dangerous, it doesn't have to be a huge deal.

Obviously hallucinations can be life changing and horrific, but so can other mental health symptoms. Hallucinations can also be neutral, or just annoying or even a positive experience. It's just a symptom, it doesn't automatically mean someone is in the worst mental state possible if they are hallucinating. It doesn't automatically mean someone is dangerous or unpredictable. It just means a person is experiencing senses that the people around them are not.

You have to learn to accept that it's just a symptom, and that people around you experience it, and they deserve to complain or talk about it just like anyone else gets to with other things in their lives. All you have to do is listen, and try to be understanding. Hallucinating is normal, you just need to stop treating it like it's abnormal.

[uncanny-tranny]

I think it would really benefit people to internalize that mental illnesses are often chronic and not acute. Some of us will never be able to jump the hurdle of managing illness, much less sustaining a sense of normalcy. Many of us will never "recover," will never manage symptoms, will never even come close to appearing normal - and this is for any condition, even the ones labeled as "simple" disorders or "easy-to-manage" disorders.

It isn't a failure if you cannot manage your symptoms. It isn't a moral failure, and you aren't an awful person. You are human. There's only so much you can do before recognizing that you cannot lift the world. Give yourself the space to be ill because, functionally, you are.

[fella-lovin-fella]

hey if you ever feel like you're faking your pain/mental illness/any symptoms, or if you feel like no one understands or believes you. i do. i believe you. i love you and i hope you do what you can to take care of yourself <3

[naamahdarling]

You know what? You know what I think?

I think that if we lived as we were meant to, in larger intimate ("extended family") groups and with more shared labor and time to do it (UBI NOW) people like me would not feel so useless and burdensome because there would be people around to help and to do what neurodivergent people can't while making valuable space for the neurodivergent to do what they ARE good at.

The way we live right now, all right, the way we live right now forces units of two adults to be able to do EVERYTHING or PAY to have someone come do it for them. I have to do the housework. I have to do it! But I am having to do a million different things and most of them I am not good at. I suck at them.

I wouldn't feel like shit, okay, if I had more than one other person around who was not a child and who could do the things I can't, like do the yard and cook and do repairs and basic maintenance; and someone else to split everything else that I like but is too much for me. It would free me to do what I am good at and enjoy. Cleaning, as in the sink and toilet, the windows, the blinds. Taking out trash. Folding, hanging, and sorting laundry.

But because all the shit I can do often relies on other shit being done first, and I can't do or have trouble doing those things, the shit I can do often can't be done. And even the shit I can do, I can't do ALL of it. So I can't keep up, and things get very bad.

We aren't meant to live like this. We are not meant to live like this.

That thought hurts so much because being able to flee the birth family is integral to survival for so many people. I'm so afraid that living in larger family groups would create more opportunities for, say, queer kids to be isolated, rejected, bullied, and abused. But if we gave people enough money to survive, and stopped considering children the property of their parents with no system in place to help them escape bad situations except a system that is often just as bad, just different.

I'm aware that communes and collectives aren't all that successful and are kind of a joke. I don't mean that. I mean a fundamental shift to multigenerational families where taking in "strays" (which my family did) is also normalized so people escaping abuse into existing households was accepted, with these families centered in maybe a couple of different larger residences so not everyone has to buy and maintain their own fucking washing machine and vacuum cleaner, and so people can benefit from large group meals that yield leftovers, and so child and elder care can also be centralized.

Then disabled people and the neurodivergent and sick and injured people, and pregnant people, and grieving people, would not have to either labor through all those stressors or consign themselves to living off an unlivable pittance or being put under legal guardianship.

I'm not saying anything new. People live like this in other parts of the world and maybe it sucks and I am wrong. But I'm just really mad right now because I can either do laundry or clean the sink but not both, and I really think we could improve society somewhat by making it so I did not have to choose one without sacrificing the other.

[shalom-iamcominghome]

Please try to find happiness.

I've seen so many of my jewish friends and people I look up to falling into despair, and I completely understand why. I feel that pull, too. But we must hold onto life. We must live, too.

I think what helps me in not feeling guilt over this is to know that judaism demands you live, as well, knowing that I will be useless as a community member if I myself am despondent and apathetic to life itself. I know this may not help everyone, but please remember, we must live. You deserve it.

Do good in their name.

[inniave]

keep seeing shit about the new ts album & mental illness and i am so so tired. please be nice to actually "crazy" people if ur gonna use us for the aesthetic. i'm not schizophrenic cause it's cute. don't joke about asylums if u haven't had those experiences (and even some of y'all who have been treat it like a vacation & to the rest of us it's prison. i mean literally. prison. incarceration. that's not new shit. and yeah, i'm that "actually crazy" person screaming in the ward. ur not any better than me.)

idk i keep posting and deleting about this cause i can't get my thoughts out properly i just. i'm tired. there was already a worsening problem of "socially acceptable" mental illness pushing out the rest of us (as it's always been) and now there's the top artist in the united states calling herself crazy, saying you should be scared of her, she was raised in an asylum, etc. and it's like.... that's my lived experience. medical doctors refuse to treat me because they're scared of my psychiatric disorders. i've had the cops called on me for episodes. i spent a decade rotting in the mental health system & institutions and i only got out after years of planning how to get away. and so much more i cant even put into words.

and now not only are y'all using folk like me & our experiences for the aesthetic. you're not even a decent human being to those of us who have actually lived through this shit. idk man. really rubs me the wrong way.

[pigswithwings]

but genuinely if you default to saying that random people and things have psychosis as an insult. you gotta change that. you have to think about why you say that. "this is psychotic" stop that shit. "these people are psychopaths" stop it. stop it what the hell. come on. real people have psychosis you think they aren't already associated with negative things? you think that helps anyone?

[inkskinned]

they want to talk about mental illness and acceptance and how everyone is a little ocd it's cute and quirky and their "intrusive thoughts" are about cutting their hair off and you say yours are about taking a razorblade to your eye and they say ew can you not and everyone is a little adhd sometimes! except if you're late it's a personality flaw and it's because you are careless and cruel (and someone else with adhd mentions they can be on time, so why can't you?) and it's not an eating disorder if it's girl dinner! it's not mania if it's girl math! what do you mean you blew all of your savings on nonrefundable plane tickets for a plane you didn't even end up taking. what do you mean that you are afraid of eating. get over it. they roll their little lips up into a sneer. can you not, like, trauma dump?

they love it on them they like to wear pieces of your suffering like jewels so that it hangs off their tongue in rapiers. they are allowed to arm-chair diagnose and cherrypick their poisons but you can't ever miss too many showers because that's, like, "fuckken gross?" so anyone mean is a narcissist. so anyone with visual tics is clearly faking it and is so cringe. but they get to scream and hit customer service employees because well, i got overwhelmed.

you keep seeing these posts about how people pleasers are "inherently manipulative" and how it's totally unfair behavior. but you are a people pleaser, you have an ingrained fawn response. in the comments, you have typed and deleted the words just because it is technically true does not make it an empathetic or kind reading of the reaction about one million times. it is technically accurate, after all. you think of catholic guilt, how sometimes you feel bad when doing a good deed because the sense of pride you get from acting kind - that pride is a sin. the word "manipulation" is not without bias or stigma attached to it. many people with the fawn response are direct victims of someone who was malignantly manipulative. calling the victims manipulative too is an unfair and unkind reading of the situation. it would be better and more empathetic to say it is safety-seeking or connection-seeking behavior. yes, it can be toxic. no, in general it is not intended to be toxic. there is no reason to make mentally ill people feel worse for what we undergo.

you type why is everyone so quick to turn on someone showing clear signs of trauma but you already know the fucking answer, so what's the point of bothering. you kind of hate those this is what anxiety looks like! infographics because at this point you're so good at white-knuckling through a severe panic attack that people just think you're stoic. even people who know the situation sometimes comment you just don't seem depressed. and you're not a 9 year old white kid so there's no way you're on the spectrum, you're not obsessed with trains and you were never a good mathematician. okay then.

mental illness is trending. in 2012 tumblr said don't romanticize our symptoms but to be fair tiktok didn't exist yet. there's these series of videos where someone pretends to be "the most boring person on earth" and is just being a normal fucking person, which makes your skin crawl, because that probably means you are boring. your friend reads aloud a profile from tinder - no depressed bitches i fucking hate that mental illness crap. your father says that medication never actually works.

you still haven't told your grandmother that you're in therapy. despite everything (and the fact it's helping): you just don't want her to see you differently.

[wafsspie]

Rekindling a friendship (bad quality :( sorry!!)

[trans-axolotl]

Bazelon Center (one of the few anti-institutionalization law centers that does Olmstead litigation) giving an award to a zionist politician (John Fetterman) is so fucking enraging and also really showcases how the nonprofit disability world is actually exploitative and dangerous in so many ways.

if you also feel pissed off that a "mental health law advocacy" group that supposedly cares about civil rights for disabled people is honoring a genocidal politician this Tuesday, feel free to comment on their instagram and also email communications@bazelon.org and let them know how you feel!

Sample email script:

"I am deeply disappointed/enraged/heartbroken/etc about your choice to honor Senator John Fetterman with the 2024 Congressional Champion award. Fetterman's has publicly refused to call for a ceasefire and continues to support the ongoing genocide, frequently making racist and inflammatory public comments. As an organization that claims to value civil rights and equality for all disabled people, it is shameful that you refuse to act in solidarity with disabled Palestinians, instead choosing to award a politician who is celebrating genocide. I demand that you retract the award from Fetterman and do not honor a genocidal politician this Tuesday."

If you can, changing up the wording to make it your own would be best.

Key points for commenting/emailing:

Express your rage/sadness that they are honoring John Fetterman.

Explain that Fetterman openly supports genocide.

Demand that they retract the award.

as mad/disabled/mentally ill people, we have a responsibility to call out our community organizations when they do bullshit like this and to actively act in solidarity!

please share, comment, and email!

[schizopositivity]

To all the people telling me "I'm in your walls" is a harmless meme and "if you are sensitive enough to be triggered by it you shouldn't be on the Internet", please read this and then tell me it's a meme that has nothing to do with schizophrenia, it's a harmless meme, and if me and other people with schizophrenia get 'triggered' by it we are too sensitive.

It was literally made to purposely trigger people in psychosis/ people with schizophrenia specifically. Me and many other people who post about our schizophrenia/psychosis online get spammed with this type of thing, I get anons pretty regularly. I actively try to avoid it but it doesn't matter. I can't think of any other popular "meme" that purposely triggers people online who are already vulnerable. It is blatant sanism/ableism.

There is no way you can divorce the "joke" from its original intended purpose. And why do you guys fight so hard to justify this "joke"? It's not ever funny, it's not clever or creative, it's just bullying a minority, that's literally it.

Those of us with schizophrenia/psychosis deserve to be on the Internet just like everybody else. It's not our fault that there is a popular meme made specifically to target our vulnerabilities. Even if we try our hardest to avoid these types of jokes, people will seek us out and harass us regardless.

Notice on the Know Your Meme page, all the other related searches that are more "memes" meant to trigger, harass, or make fun of people with psychosis/schizophrenia. A lot of these memes have only started/become popular in the last few years. And yet no one seems to be speaking up about how fucked up that is. Not even neurodivergent/mental illness awareness online. And when those of us with schizophrenia try ourselves to call it out, guess what kind of comments we get 🙄

[kkoct-ik]

i dont think i will ever forgive what the internet did to DID because please explain to me how "your sense of self is so torn apart you think youre multiple people" turned into "youre actually multiple people"

do you understand what i mean? please understand what i mean